


In the Stars

by ElektricAngel



Category: Gravity Falls, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirates of the Caribbean Fusion, Crossover, M/M, Older Characters, Pirates, human form Bill
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-17 13:24:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16517318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElektricAngel/pseuds/ElektricAngel
Summary: Dipper didn’t expect it to end this way. A noose around his neck, a crowd thirsty for blood. He had dedicated his life to studying the stars, searching for the truth. And he would be hanged as a witch, alongside a common pirate. Although, there is something not so common about the man standing beside him on the gallows...





	1. Enemies of All Mankind

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to peregrinefalcon for giving me the inspiration for this fic! (And of course, while this is a Pirates of the Caribbean AU, this fic also owes a debt to the epic fic Devil With a Silver Compass, to which it bears some similarities.)
> 
> This is heavily inspired by Dead Men Tell No Tales, but there will be elements from most of the PotC movies. Here’s a rough character breakdown, although some characters are a bit of a fusion of multiple Pirates characters:
> 
> Dipper = Carina  
> Bill = Salazar  
> Mabel = Henry  
> Ford = Will  
> Stan = Barbossa
> 
> This fic has a playlist! You can listen here: https://8tracks.com/electricangels/golden-dogs

The noose was rough and heavy around Dipper’s neck. The hangman had pulled it tight enough to put pressure on his windpipe that made it slightly difficult to breathe. It was a dizzying reminder of what was to follow. His life was about to come to an abrupt end—all because of the ignorance and superstition of his fellow man. He wanted to scream, but the rope seemed to constrict his throat like a snake, tightening as he gasped for breath. Dipper felt like he might faint where he stood and hang himself early.

The man standing beside him on the gallows looked entirely unaffected by the prospect of his impending demise. If anything, he looked bored. He had even tried to chat up the hangman as he’d slipped the noose around his neck, but the hangman had simply tightened the noose further, causing the condemned man to break off in a fit of coughing. He was wearing a long, gold coat with black frogging—the dress uniform of a Spanish Marine. Which meant he was likely a deserter, or a pirate. Possibly both. When the magistrate started to address the crowd, the criminal with whom Dipper was about to die looked over at him for the first time. And although he wore a black leather eyepatch over one eye, Dipper got the strangest impression that he had winked.

“Good people of Saint Martin,” cried the French magistrate. “Before you stand two most wicked men: one convicted of piracy, the other of witchcraft.”

“Which am I convicted of, again?” Dipper’s companion in death interrupted.

The magistrate ignored him. “Both of their crimes make them _hostis_ _humani_ _generis_ , enemies of all mankind, and undeserving of the mercy of our great empire. The only thing they deserve is death. Mason Pines, practitioner of the Devil’s black arts, do you have any last words?”

“I didn’t cause the eclipse! I predicted it through a series of observations and calculations, with the aid of simple mechanical instruments! I am an astronomer, a man of science! I don’t even believe in magic! If I had that kind of power, do you think I would still be standing here with a noose around my neck?”

He panted, struggling to draw breath. The crowd jeered, familiar faces hardened by anger and fear. Dipper knew these people. There was Madame Delfin who ran the tavern, Julien the port master, Charles and Sophie who owned the trading post, Allard the quiet and mild-mannered lighthouse keeper. Bakers, blacksmiths, bureaucrats, their wives and children. The people he had lived among for the past five years looked at him now as though he were an insidious stranger, a monster in their midst. Individuals were lost in the mob, and like sharks that had scented blood in the water, they had riled each other into a feeding frenzy. Dipper had known an attempt to appeal to reason and common sense would be as fruitless as it had been during his so-called trial, but he’d had to make it. At least he’d built himself a hill of moral high ground to die on. For a moment, he almost wished his sister were here. But he tamped down on that thought. It was better that she wasn’t here to see this.

“I just have one final request,” said Dipper, when the crowd had quieted down. “Look up at the stars tonight, all of you. Look up at the vast heavens in which our tiny planet is suspended, and for once, think about something other than your own petty paranoia.”

The crowd booed, some of them even throwing rotten vegetables up onto the gallows. The magistrate moved on. “William Cipher, notorious pirate captain of the _Golden_ _Sphinx_ ,” he began, and Dipper nearly choked. _A_ _ship_ _crewed_ _by_ _the_ _damned_ _and_ _captained_ _by_ _a_ _man_ _so_ _evil,_ _Hell_ _itself_ _spat_ _him_ _back_ _out._ Dipper wasn’t one for superstitions, but if the man beside him was Bill Cipher, then _hostis_ _humani_ _generis_ was a fitting designation. “Have you any last words?”

“Funny,” said Cipher with a manic grin. “I was about to ask you the same question.”

The magistrate looked at Cipher warily, and then in complete and utter horror, as though he were looking at some terrible creature of the abyss, as though he feared for his very life and soul. He started to scream and wouldn’t stop. His muscles seized in fright, rooting him to the spot, and still he screamed. Until, slowly, his trembling hands lifted to grip his jaw and the base of his skull, and then pulled hard. There was a snap, and the magistrate crumpled, hitting the gallows with a very final thud.

“Witchcraft!” someone in the crowd shouted, and the cry was taken up by others. The hangman made to pull the lever that would drop them both to their deaths, but with a wave of his hand, Cipher sent a sharp lick of blue flame slicing through both ropes, and he and Dipper dropped harmlessly to the ground beneath the gallows. Cipher landed in a graceful crouch, while Dipper, still in shock from the magistrate’s display (and still in handcuffs), landed flat on his ass. Somehow, Cipher had gotten out of his manacles, and with a snap of his fingers, Dipper’s fell open, too.

“You coming?” Cipher asked, offering his hand.

Dipper was good with calculations, and now that he had one before him, his racing mind kicked into gear. An angry mob that wanted to lynch him for witchcraft or an infamous pirate who was quite possibly a witch himself. Which was the greater threat to his continued survival? At the moment, the answer seemed clear: the mob. They wanted his blood, Dipper had seen it in their eyes when he was standing on the gallows. It wasn’t clear what Bill Cipher wanted, but a pirate captain had to have a ship, and that was the only way Dipper was getting off this island. Dipper reached up and took Cipher’s hand.

Cipher gave another terrifying grin as he hauled Dipper to his feet. “Good choice, kid,” he said. And they ran.

~ X ~ 

It didn’t take Dipper long to realize they weren’t being followed. In fact, everyone else was running in the opposite direction. “Why aren’t they chasing us?”

Cipher cackled gleefully. “They are! They just saw us run down toward the docks.”

That settled it. Dipper knew better than to ignore evidence, and right now, the bulk of it supported one obvious conclusion. “Okay, the pirate’s a witch,” he muttered under his breath. “That’s fine.” He would deal with that fact later. Dipper could compartmentalize.

It wasn’t much longer before Dipper had a second realization: they were running toward his house. The route was a little circuitous—Cipher kept tugging him down alleyways rather than main streets—but sure enough, they exited one such alley onto Dipper’s street, and came to a halt in front of his house. He was still holding Cipher’s hand, which he quickly released. “How do you know where I live?” he panted. The bloody pirate didn’t even look winded. His legs were so long it simply wasn’t fair.

Cipher pointed up at the small observatory Dipper had had built onto his second storey. “I took a wild guess.” Right. That made sense. “You’ll need your charts and instruments if you’re to be of use to me as a navigator.” Dipper hadn’t noticed when Cipher had started speaking to him in English, but he must have noticed that Dipper’s French still left something to be desired, even after five years in French territory.

“Navigator?” Dipper wasn’t about to argue with the witch-pirate, but he also didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding between them. “I’ve never tried to apply my astronomical knowledge to practical navigation before.” His plan, as far as he had formulated one, was to barter passage with Cipher to the next island, where he could find a more reputable captain who would take him to English territory, where a French colonial dispute wouldn’t follow him. Perhaps he could go to England herself. Astronomy was well-respected there. What he did not want was to be impressed into a pirate crew.

Cipher gave him a disbelieving look. “Think this through, kid. You’re either useful to me or you’re not, and I’m your only ticket off this murder island because I am currently operating under the assumption that I will benefit more from keeping you alive than letting you die. Are you trying to tell me otherwise?”

Well, when he put it that way. Dipper swallowed hard. “No,” he croaked. “I know the stars like you know the sea. I-if we work together, I’m sure we can get your ship wherever you want it to go.”

“I knew you had it in you, kid,” said Cipher happily. “Now, go in and pack your things. I’ll wait out here. If you’re not out in five minutes, I’ll leave without you.” He gave Dipper a little wave. “Tick tock, kid.” After only a moment of panicked indecision, Dipper turned and bolted inside.

He dumped the blankets out of his wooden chest and packed his astronomical instruments into it as quickly and carefully as he could. Then he rolled up his star charts and pulled a few books from his shelf and loaded them in as well. He stuffed some clothes, money and other essentials haphazardly into a leather satchel. Finally, he pulled open a hatch in the floorboards beneath his bed. Inside was an old leather journal, its cover inset with a constellation Dipper had been unable to find on any star chart, a ruby the size of an eyeball, and above that, the words _verum_ _omnia_ _simul_ _astra_ —the truth is in the stars. It was the only thing his great uncle had left behind before he’d disappeared. Full of cryptic sketches and coded messages, it was nigh inscrutable. But Dipper had spent years searching the stars for whatever truth the journal promised, and he wasn’t going anywhere without it. He wrapped it in a shirt and stuffed it deep into his satchel.

At his front door, he turned back to take one last look at the home he was leaving behind. He would likely never see it again, especially if the townspeople decided to burn it to the ground because a witch had lived there. It reminded Dipper of how Cortez had burnt his ships when he’d arrived in the New World. There would be no going back. Dipper opened the door and stepped outside. 

Cipher was still there, even though Dipper felt he’d taken slightly longer than five minutes. “Got everything you need?” Cipher asked, which was oddly considerate of him. Until Dipper realized that if he didn’t have everything he needed to navigate, the consequences could be dire. For him, at least.

“Yes,” said Dipper, hefting the chest in his arms, his satchel slung over his shoulder. Cipher reached out and tapped the chest with a finger, and it vanished. Dipper stumbled with the loss of the weight, nearly overbalancing and pitching forward into Cipher. “What did you do with my things?” he demanded.

“Relax, it’ll be waiting for you on the _Sphinx_. Want me to take care of that satchel you got there, too?”

Dipper clutched the bag protectively and took a step back. “No. This stays with me.”

Cipher smiled slowly, less wild than before, more calculated, knowing. “Suit yourself.”

The alarm bells began to sound, and they took off running again, although thankfully Cipher slowed his pace a little once they made it out of town. They made their way up and over the hill, Dipper carefully picking his way over the jagged rocks, Cipher seeming to know just where to put his feet without even looking. He moved with preternatural grace, displaying none of the ravages that sailing tended to take on a man’s body.

“If you’re really a witch, can’t you just... _poof_ us onto your ship, like you did with my things?” Dipper panted, making a vague hand gesture.

“I wouldn’t wanna risk scrambling your brains. I’ll need them,” Cipher called back from up ahead. Dipper hadn’t actually expected the other man to be able to hear him at that distance. “Besides,” Cipher continued, “if I make this too easy for you, you won’t appreciate all the trouble I’ve gone to to retrieve you.” Dipper was too exhausted to argue with that. “Also, I’m not a witch.”

“Sorry, _warlock_. Or sorcerer, or magus, or what have you.”

“I’m going to assume you’re not trying to insult me. Because that would be very foolhardy of you, and you don’t seem the type.”

“What term do you prefer, then?” Dipper hadn’t given the notion of magic much credence since he was a boy. But he was nothing if not openminded, and whenever he encountered something he didn’t understand, it only made him more eager to learn.

Cipher didn’t answer. He was standing at the crest of the hill with his hands on his hips, looking down over the small, secluded beach Dipper knew lay beyond. “There she is. The _Golden_ _Sphinx_ , the finest ship on the nine seas.”

“Er. I’m more familiar with the sky than the sea, but there are only seven seas. Aren’t there?”

Cipher snorted. “Who taught you that?”

He didn’t elaborate or wait for a response from Dipper before making his way down the hill to the beach. A beach which, once Dipper crested the hill moments later, appeared to be...empty. Dipper scanned the horizon for sails, and saw none. But Cipher was walking down the beach with purpose, and as Dipper watched him, he raised his hands to his mouth and yelled, “Prepare to weigh anchor and cast off!”

For an alarming few seconds, Dipper thought he’d not only thrown his lot in with a pirate and a witch, but a completely insane one at that. But then the air seemed to shimmer, and slowly, as if emerging from a fog bank, an enormous, dark ship with a gilded sphinx figurehead appeared moored just off shore, where there had been nothing but open water the last time Dipper blinked. As the main sail unfurled, Dipper saw that it was emblazoned with a great, golden eye, slit like a cat’s, which gave Dipper the unnerving impression that the ship was looking right back at him.

“At least he’s not crazy,” murmured Dipper, pointedly ignoring the fact that he was talking to himself. A small dinghy had appeared on the beach at the same time as the ship, and that was where Cipher was heading. Hurriedly, Dipper adjusted his satchel over his shoulder and followed him. In the distance, he could still hear the town’s alarm bells ringing.

Cipher held the boat steady while Dipper clambered in, then hopped in after him, taking up the oars and rowing them out. Now that he was sitting across from the pirate and they weren’t running for their lives, Dipper started to notice more details about him. He had rolled up his sleeves to row, which revealed a tattooed cuff around each forearm in a brickwork pattern that faded the farther up his arms it climbed. On the back of his left hand was the tattoo of an eye like the one on the sail of his ship. But there was no pirate brand that Dipper could see, which was odd, since he should have been branded before his execution. And his fingernails were black. Just as his choppy blonde hair darkened to black at the nape of his neck. And as Dipper’s eyes traveled upward, he noticed an intricate gold piece with a triangle at its center that Cipher wore around his neck. It looked like no coin Dipper had ever seen—possibly South American in origin. Finally, Dipper worked up the courage to look Cipher in the eye. He regretted it almost immediately. The eye that wasn’t covered by a patch had an iris as gold as the coin around Cipher’s neck, and a pupil slit like a cat’s. Or something else.

Cipher grinned, and for the first time, Dipper noticed that his canines were a little longer than was natural. Dipper averted his eyes with an involuntary shiver, recalling what had happened to the last person who had met Cipher’s gaze. Witches were supposed to have unnatural features…weren’t they? During Dipper’s own trial, his birthmark had been used as evidence against him—a mark of the beast, they’d said. But Cipher kept insisting he was no witch.

Then something Cipher had said earlier came back to Dipper, something he’d phrased rather oddly: “ _If_ _I_ _make_ _this_ _too_ _easy_ _for_ _you,_ _you_ _won’t_ _appreciate_ _all_ _the_ _trouble_ _I’ve_ _gone_ _to_ _to_ _retrieve_ _you.”_ If Cipher had the power to escape his captivity, then how had he been captured in the first place? The obvious explanation was that he had let it happen. He had waited until he and Dipper were alone on the gallows, until the magistrate had announced Dipper’s name. He had known exactly how to get to Dipper’s house taking only side streets. His ship was waiting for him off shore, a dinghy ready on the beach. He had planned everything. This wasn’t an escape—it was an abduction.

“You came here for me,” said Dipper, still not meeting Cipher’s gaze. “If all you needed was a navigator, you could have picked one up in any major port town. So why do you need me?”

Cipher chuckled. “I should have expected nothing less from the Pines boy. You’re right, of course.”

“Do you...know my family?”

“We’re acquainted. I bet you don’t know much about your great uncles, do you? The one took to the seas almost twenty years ago. The other, not long after that. You must’ve been little more than a child.”

“I was old enough to take care of myself.” He and Mabel had taken care of each other, after their parents had died, and their great uncles, who were supposed to watch over them, had left. 

“Still, they abandoned you. Do you even know why?” There was that smile again, as though Cipher had a hundred secrets on the tip of his tongue. “Because I do.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I wasn’t lying. I need you to be my navigator. There’s something I’m looking for, a certain treasure, and you’ve got the key to the map. It’s all in that journal of yours.” He looked pointedly at Dipper’s satchel.

Dipper clutched it tighter to his side. “How do you know about the journal?”

“Oh, I know lots of things. I have all the answers you’ve been searching for. So what do you say we make this a mutually beneficial arrangement? You help me find this treasure, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know. What say you? Do we have a deal?” They had pulled up alongside the _Sphinx_ , and Cipher had stopped rowing. He held out his hand, waiting.

Dipper looked back toward the shore, but nothing but death awaited him there. The journal said the truth was in the stars, not with some pirate of high seas legend. But Cipher certainly knew _something_ , which was a damn sight more than Dipper did. Considering Dipper didn’t have much choice in the matter anyway, if he could get something out of it, he wasn’t about to refuse. Cautiously, he reached out and took Cipher’s hand for the second time. “Deal,” he said.

Cipher grinned as a lick of blue flame enveloped their hands, but didn’t burn. “Welcome to the crew.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on the journal’s Latin inscription, which is from the movie: I’ve taken a year of Latin and know it well enough to translate. I’m pretty sure there are a couple of words left out of the phrase, so my translation isn’t a direct one. It’s more of an interpretation of an incomplete idea. But if anyone reading this knows Latin better than I do and wants to offer a correction or alternative translation, please do.
> 
> Here's a reference for Cipher's coat: https://www.flickr.com/photos/28981624@N02/2790128264/in/set-72157623830900580/


	2. Daydream

“Bill Cipher slipped the noose in Saint Martin.”

“Can’t trust the French to do anything right.”

“Where’s he headed?”

“Says he vanished without a trace.”

“Ha! That’s fancy French for ‘fuck if we know’.”

Mabel cleared her throat, not so much to get the sailors’ attention, as to make sure her voice came out pitched sufficiently low when she spoke. “Excuse me, but did you say he was in Saint Martin?”

“That’s what it says here,” said Rawlings, slapping the pamphlet he’d picked up on shore leave in St. Kitts with the back of his hand. 

“You’ve got family there, don’t you, Mason?” Beckett asked. 

“Yes…my twin sister,” Mabel answered nervously.

“Apparently the only casualty was the magistrate,” said Rawlings. “Still, the West Indies are a dangerous place for an English maiden. If I were you, I would send her back home.” 

“I appreciate your concern, but Mabel can take care of herself.” 

Rawlings grunted. “If you say so.”

“How did Cipher escape?” asked Haversham.

“With the help of a witch, if you believe this hogwash,” said Rawlings. The three men laughed. 

“They’ll believe anything out here in the colonies, won’t they?” said Haversham, shaking his head.

“Still, you can’t exactly blame them,” said Beckett. “Anything can happen in these waters.” 

There was the rhythmic sound of marching coming up the gangplank, alerting the sailors that the commodore and his retinue had returned. They all snapped to attention, saluting as he stepped on deck. Commodore Hawthorne glanced down at the pamphlet still in Rawlings’ hand, and sneered. “If the _Golden Sphinx_ crosses our path, our orders are the same as ever: capture or destroy pirate vessels, and bring survivors to face justice in the admiralty court—if there are any.”Rawlings nodded firmly, and the commodore turned to address the rest of the crew. “To your posts, sailors!” he called. “I want her underway while the wind’s in our favor!”

As everyone scrambled to their duties, Mabel dashed across the deck and clambered up the rigging to let down the sails. She was the fastest topman aboard HMS  _Sea Dragon_ , and she wasn’t even a man! 

She made short work of the knots along the gaff, and as the main sail unfurled, she looked out over the endless horizon and thought of her brother, back on Saint Martin, searching the stars as she searched the seas, both seeking answers to the same questions. She hoped with all her heart that Dipper was safe. 

~ X ~

“This ship looks extremely unsafe,” said Dipper as he climbed the rope ladder up toward the deck, a little ways behind Cipher. The _Golden Sphinx_ cut a majestic silhouette from afar, but up close, the paint was peeling, the sails were tattered, and entire sections of the hull were missing, so that Dipper could see _through_ the ship in places. 

“Excuse me?” Cipher scoffed. “I’ll have you know, this ship has sailed through the Devil’s Triangle and out the other side.”

“That would explain a lot,” Dipper muttered to himself. “How is she still floating?” he called back up to Cipher. 

Cipher had made it to the deck, and stood looking down over the edge at Dipper. He made a little twinkling gesture with his fingers. “Magic.” 

Dipper shook his head. “I’m not even surprised at this point.” 

“Really?” Cipher sounded incredibly smug. “I thought you were a man of science, and didn’t believe in magic.” 

“I’m only skeptical of phenomena unsupported by verifiable evidence. I’d say you’ve provided plenty of evidence to prove me wrong.”

“Good,” said Cipher, offering his hand to help Dipper up over the edge. “Because you won’t last a day on this ship without an open mind.”

He hauled Dipper up onto the deck, and Dipper finally got his first look at the crew. He hesitated to say _ghosts_ , but...there was really no more scientific term that was coming to mind. There were about a dozen of them on deck, seeing to various tasks like securing the rigging and hauling up the boat, which meant they had to be corporeal in some way. But much like the ship, pieces of them were... _missing_. And not in the conventional sense, where they had lost body parts due to injury or disease, and had replaced them with hooks, peg legs and eyepatches. One man was missing his left arm from the shoulder down to the wrist, but his left hand moved as though it were attached to a perfectly functioning arm as he pulled a rope taut and tied it down. Another man was missing his jaw, but was still barking clear instructions to his partner as they worked together to secure the ship’s anchor. In addition to being…incomplete, they all looked ashen, colorless, as though they were rendered from black ink on weathered parchment. Whatever they were, they were not of the natural realm. 

Dipper took a faltering step back, but, recalling the twenty-foot drop into the sea behind him, stopped himself from taking another. “You scared yet, Pine Tree?” Cipher purred, leaning in close. 

“H-how do you command these, these shades?” Dipper stuttered out.

“Rather obnoxiously, for the most part,” said a low, feminine voice from Dipper’s other side.

Dipper jumped, and would have stumbled backward off the ship had Cipher not grabbed his shirt front and hauled him back to his feet. “Careful, Cruz, he’s precious cargo,” Cipher admonished the woman who had appeared beside them without Dipper hearing her approach. Her features were slightly masculine, but no less beautiful for it, her long, black hair tied back under a bandana, and where most ladies had a waist and stomach, Dipper could see the curves of her hipbones arching above the waistline of her loose trousers, and her bare spinal column rising a ways before it disappeared entirely, leaving an empty gap of several inches before her visible upper body continued.

“He doesn’t look like much,” she said, unimpressed. “Are you sure he’s worth the trouble?”

“Pine Tree, meet your charming quartermaster, Selena Cruz,” said Cipher, and Dipper suddenly got the very clear impression that these two traded verbal daggers only because steel ones wouldn’t really do the trick.

She arched an eyebrow. “Pine Tree?”

Equally mystified by Cipher’s odd nickname, Dipper figured a proper introduction was in order. “I– I’m Dipper Pines. P–pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said, forcing out his hand and hoping desperately that she wouldn’t bite it off.

She just looked at it for a moment, and then back up at Cipher, as if Dipper had just proven her point. “Anyway, you oughta know better than to judge a book by its cover,” Cipher continued the conversation with Cruz as though Dipper weren’t present. “What do I always say?”

“Things are never as they seem,” Cruz answered. She gave Dipper another appraising look. “Perhaps the boy has hidden depths,” she ceded. “Well hidden and very deep.”

“Hey,” Dipper objected weakly, but Cipher was already pulling him away toward the quarterdeck. 

As he crossed the ship, he called out instructions to the topmen up in the rigging, and the booms began to swing out for the sails to catch the wind. When Cipher ascended the steps to the quarterdeck and wrapped his hands around the ship’s wheel, she responded easily, pulling out of the cove and into the open ocean. 

“Sails!” called the man up in the crow’s nest. Sure enough, a French colonial militia vessel came into view seconds later, pulling out of port. 

“Relax,” said Cipher, anticipating Dipper’s imminent panic. “I’m not in the mood for a fight. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.” And with a flourish of his hand, all color began to drain from the _Golden Sphinx_ , beginning with the masts and sails, cascading down across the deck beneath their feet, and falling off over the sides of the ship, until every inch of the vessel had faded to those same dreamlike, ink-on-parchment hues as its crew. 

They continued to round the headland without the French ship giving any sign of having noticed their presence. “What did you do?” Dipper asked. “Is the ship invisible again?”

“In a way!” Cipher answered, apparently delighted by Dipper’s curiosity. “You ever had a daydream?”

“Yes…” Dipper admitted. He had had more than his share, really. 

“Well, now you’re sailing in one! The _Sphinx_ could pass right through the middle of a Naval squadron with no one paying her any mind. They only see what I want ‘em to see.”

“But _how_? And please don’t just say magic,” he continued, before Cipher could answer. “I mean, what sort of magic? How does it work? You’re not using any incantations or artefacts or sigils—“

“Trinkets used by the weak to channel power beyond their comprehension,” Cipher dismissed. “I don’t need to steal magic,” he continued, with a peculiar amount of disdain for a pirate who stole for a living. “I’ve got my own. And this ship, the crew, they’re all bound to me.” Dipper recalled the phantasmal blue flames wreathing his and Cipher’s hands as they shook on their deal, and very much did not like the word ‘bound’ in that sentence.

“Are the crew…human?”

“Mm. Tricky question. They used to be. It was perceptive of you, calling them ‘shades’. The word implies something casting a shadow on this realm from another. They’re more accurately…split between worlds. There isn’t really a word for what they are.” 

“But you’re not like them,” said Dipper, because that much was obvious. “So what are you, exactly?” As hesitant as he was to learn the answer, Dipper needed to know what he was dealing with.

Cipher looked thoughtful as he stared out at the endless horizon. “I’ve been called an illusionist, a dreamweaver, keeper of secrets and player of tricks upon men’s minds…”

“Is that what the magistrate saw when he looked at you?” asked Dipper. “An illusion?”

“A waking nightmare,” said Cipher with a sharp smile. “Whatever it was, it scared him more than death.”

“So you didn’t kill him?” Dipper didn’t know whether inducing a man to kill himself was any better than killing him outright, but it said something about Cipher either way. Dipper just wasn’t sure yet what that was. 

“That’s right. He took the coward’s way out.” Inexplicably, Cipher began to laugh. “Although, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t expect he would. Some men just have that air about them. You don’t, though.” He glanced over at Dipper again in that unnerving way he had, as though he could see things that no one else could. “That was some speech you gave up on the gallows. Most men with a noose around their necks start begging for mercy, be it God’s or the magistrate’s. But you were just spitting mad!” He chuckled again. “I think I’m gonna like you, kid.”

Dipper laughed nervously. “T-thanks. I’m just glad the stories about you are wrong.”

“Oh?” Cipher cocked his head. “In what way?”

“W-well, they say you’re a demon.” 

Cipher didn’t deny it, however, which made Dipper exponentially more nervous. Instead, Cipher merely shrugged. “They say all pirates are sea devils and hellhounds. They also say you're a witch. In my case, most of the things they say about me just happen to be closer to the truth. But monster, devil, deity—they’re all just words for things men don’t understand.” Was he saying the stories were _true_?That he was really…not of this world? “But you don’t need to worry about what to call me,” Cipher continued. “You can just call me Captain.” 

The _Sphinx_ passed within a hundred yards of the French vessel, and the other ship stayed its course, entirely oblivious to the danger that had passed them by. Dipper couldn’t help but imagine a British ship of the line in its place, his sister somewhere up in the sails, looking out. As much as he longed to see her, the last thing he wanted was for the _Golden Sphinx_ and the _Sea Dragon_ to cross paths while he and his sister were aboard. 

“Captain.” Another member of the crew ascended to the quarterdeck, this one missing almost the entire right half of his body. Morbidly curious, Dipper peered around as he approached, but aside from a few of the man’s ribs, all he could see inside the man was a thick darkness, like black smoke. “The southeasterly winds will have us in St. Kitts in a little over half a day,” he said.

“Glad to hear it, Espada,” said Cipher. “Pine Tree, this is Emanuel Espada, my first mate. Espada, this is our new navigator.” 

“Dipper Pines. Pleased to meet you,” said Dipper. He nearly offered his hand once more, but if Espada had a right hand, there was no sign of it. So Dipper ended up just shifting his weight awkwardly.

“I hope you’re worth your salt, Mr. Pines,” he said. 

“You and everyone else around here, it seems,” said Dipper, a touch annoyed. He was an astronomer—by any measure, he ought to know the stars better than a simple navigator. 

“Espada and I have to discuss our next order of business,” said Cipher.

“Which is?” Dipper asked. 

“And as much as I love an inquiring mind,” Cipher continued, “I don’t need my navigator on deck to get to St. Kitts. The navigation room is through those doors behind us. Your things are waiting for you in there. Why don’t you go get yourself settled?”

As pleasantly as he’d said it, it was clearly an order. “Aye, Captain,” said Dipper, turning on his heel and marching back through the doors Cipher had indicated. He was actually relieved to get away from everything for a while. He had a lot to process.

His chest was indeed waiting for him inside, on the floor beside the map table. But he needn’t have bothered with it. Cipher had just about every astronomical instrument Dipper had ever heard of, and even a few that he didn’t recognize. There was a large, bronze, tripod-mounted telescope pointed out the long row of windows, a gleaming orrery and an armillary sphere sitting in the opposite corner, several sextants, nocturnals and astrolabes scattered across the table. Floor-to-ceiling shelves on either side of the room were crammed with rolled-up maps and navigational charts of the stars and sea, and stacks of leather-bound log books were piled up against one wall.

Dipper moved further into the room, a little in awe. For a moment, he felt like he was back in his observatory, and tears welled in his eyes entirely unbidden. He tilted his head back and blinked furiously to keep them from falling. That was when he noticed the painted ceiling. The background was a rich, deep blue, and painted over it in gold were hundreds of stars, connected by dotted lines into constellations. But after a few seconds of staring up at them through his blurry vision, Dipper realized he didn’t recognize any of the constellations.

No. There was one that he recognized. He had searched for it in the sky every night to no avail, and every day, he had studied its image on the cover of his great uncle’s journal. 


	3. The Belly of the Beast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made an aesthetic post for this fic: http://urban-sorcerer.tumblr.com/post/181038081372/mood-board-for-my-gravity-falls-pirates-of-the

Somewhere deep beneath the waves, the death of all sailors, the ancient mariner known as Davy Jones, sensed a slight shift in the balance of lives on the surface. The second Pines child had set out to sea.

~ X ~

Although he didn’t need to, Dipper dug the journal out of his satchel and held it up toward the ceiling, juxtaposing both constellations. There was no mistaking it: five stars, connected in three branches off a single line, like a pitchfork, or a trident. They were an exact match. But what did it mean, that he had found the mysterious constellation here, of all places? Was the truth to be found aboard the _Golden_ _Sphinx_? There was clearly some connection between Great Uncle Ford and Bill Cipher, but Dipper couldn’t for the life of him imagine what Ford would have to do with a notorious pirate. Unless this constellation was somehow the key. But which stars were these?

Dipper took a closer look around, trying to find some answers, anything that might help him make sense of the mystery, but Cipher kept a very strange collection of items in this room, their purposes not immediately apparent. Shelved among seemingly standard texts on navigation were books about cryptography, mythology, religion, alchemy, astrology, death, and the symbolism of dreams. Over the windows hung crystals of various colors, each catching and splitting the light into different spectra across the floor. A closer examination of what Dipper had taken to be bizarre astronomical instruments revealed markings that didn’t corresponded to Earth’s celestial spheres. On the table, a map of the Leeward Islands was unfurled, with a rather ominous scorch mark over Saint Martin in the shape of a triangle, within it, that same slitted eye emblazoned on the ship’s sail. The closer Dipper looked, the more questions arose. But no answers.

For a supposed navigator, Dipper couldn’t have felt more lost. He began to unpack his chest, as Cipher had suggested, and that was when it really started to sink in. This ship was going to be his new home for the foreseeable future. He had gone upon the account, joining the crew of the most feared pirate in the West Indies, who was also possibly a literal demon, just to save his own skin. And he honestly couldn’t say he wouldn’t make the same choice again if given a second chance. He could kiss that precious moral high ground goodbye, that was for sure. It was almost funny: a navigator with a broken moral compass. What in heaven or hell had he gotten himself into?

He had almost finished unpacking his things when Cipher swanned in like he owned the place, which, Dipper supposed, he did. He now had on a black tricorne hat, a gun belt across his chest with the grip of a flintlock pistol poking prominently through his coat, and another broad, leather belt with a dagger sheathed at one hip and a cutlass at the other. Dipper recoiled instinctively at the sight of so many weapons, but then recalled how he had seen Cipher shoot fire from his fingertips and scare a man to death with just a look. This man, if a man he was, didn’t need weapons to be dangerous.

“How do you like the new digs?” Cipher asked brightly. “It’s no private observatory, but I have my own interest in the heavens. There are all kinds of secrets written in the stars, if you know how to read them.”

Dipper considered asking about the strange stars on the ceiling, but he didn’t want to tip his hand quite so soon. Not until he could get a better reading on Cipher. “It almost feelslike home,” he admitted.

“Good! But if there’s anything else you need, we can pick it up when we stop for supplies on St. Kitts. By the way, how much would you say you eat in a week?”

“Uh...I’m not exactly sure. Why?”

“Does it look like the rest of the crew have much of an appetite? I’ve gotta get ahold of whatever I need to keep you alive when we make port, so try not to get hungry before then.”

“Oh.” Well, this was officially the poorest decision Dipper had ever made in his life. “I’ll, uh, do my best.”

“Come on,” said Cipher, jerking his head. “I’ll give you the tour, show you the ropes around here.”

Reluctantly, Dipper followed his captain out of the navigation room and back onto the quarterdeck, where Espada was now at the helm. Dipper glanced behind him to see that Saint Martin was already little more than a speck on the horizon. Soon, his home for the past five years of his life would vanish from sight entirely. But he would not lose sight of himself so easily. He was no pirate, even if, for a while, he had to pretend to be.

They descended to the main deck, where the sailors were hard at work at their stations. One man stood at the far end of the deck, overseeing the organized chaos and barking orders occasionally. His right shoulder and the right half of his face were gone, exposing his skull and the vertebrae in his neck. “That’s Calavera, the boatswain,” said Cipher. “Since you won’t be working on the main deck, you don’t have to listen to a word he says.” Calavera eyed Dipper suspiciously as they crossed to one of the hatches leading belowdecks. 

Cipher hauled open the hatch and made an ‘after you’ gesture, so Dipper clambered down the ladder to the next deck. Cipher followed, pulling the hatch closed behind him. “This is the gun deck. The _Sphinx_ has thirty guns, which made her pretty formidable even before she came into my possession.” Sure enough, fifteen cannons lined the hull on either side, accompanied by barrels of gunpowder and stacks of cannonballs to supply them with their devastating firepower.

“You mean you captured her?” Dipper asked, surprised that a ship such as this could ever have been taken.

“She was a gift, actually. Although she used to belong to the Spanish navy.”

“And they just...gave her to you?” asked Dipper skeptically. 

“Her captain did.” Cipher chuckled. “He actually gave me two vessels that day. But that’s a story for another time. Locke, you down here?” he called.

There was some shuffling, and then a young man with skin as dark as the gunpowder smudged on his fingertips stepped out from behind the foremast. “Just checking the powder, Captain. Dry as bones.”

“Pine Tree, this is my gunner, Armond Locke. If you hear him yelling his pretty little head off, that’s your queue to get belowdecks and make yourself scarce. Otherwise, you could end up like him.” Cipher gestured to the gaping hole in Locke’s side, from underarm to hip. It looked as though a shark had taken a bite out of him.

Locke ignored the captain’s remark. “So this is the boy who can lead us to freedom,” he said as he approached.

Cipher had said they were searching for treasure, but perhaps Locke was waxing poetic. Many men believed riches brought freedom, pirates probably chief among them. “My name is Dipper. Dipper Pines,” Dipper said. He was was also getting a little tired of being called a boy. He was twenty-two, and Locke looked barely older than him.

To Dipper’s surprise, Locke offered his hand. “Well, Mr. Pines, I hope the captain’s right about you.” Unlike the others, he sounded sincere, genuinely hopeful. Dipper shook his hand, and it felt almost warm.

Cipher scoffed. “I’m always right. Come on, Pine Tree.” Cipher turned on his heel with a huff and continued walking back toward the stern, where there was a short corridor with two doors on either side, and one set of doors at the end. Dipper shot an apologetic look back at Locke before hurrying to catch up to the captain.

Cipher walked all the way down to the last set of doors and poked his head inside. “Rose? What are you doing in here?”

“I was just looking to borrow one of Silver’s saws,” came a soft, amiable voice from within.

Cipher let the door swing open to reveal two men standing in the middle of what looked like a torture chamber. There were knives and saws of all kinds hanging on the walls, swaying with the motion of the ship and glinting in the lamplight. In the center of the room was a wooden table as long as a man was tall, and covered in deep red stains. The room smelled like rust. 

One of the men, a slender but muscular man of middling age who seemed to be missing the entirety of both arms except for his fingers, was sharpening a large saw for the second man, a younger, rather portly fellow, who was missing a leg as well as most of the flesh on his hands and the lower half of his face.

“This is the ship’s infirmary,” Cipher explained. “That’s Jack Silver, our surgeon,” he said, indicating the man sharpening the saw. “And that’s Mortimer Rose, our cook.”

Silver didn’t bother halting his task, but Rose walked over to them with a huge grin displaying far too many teeth. “You must be Mr. Pines!” He offered a skeletal hand, which Dipper very delicately shook. “I’m just pleased as pudding to have you aboard. I haven’t had the opportunity to cook for anyone in years!”

“I didn’t know you were so keen on the idea,” Cipher said. “You should’ve said something! You can always cook for me.”

Rose sighed wistfully. “But only the hungry man truly appreciates a hearty meal, and your hunger, Captain, is not so easily satisfied.”

Cipher smirked. “Well, you’re right about that.” Then he frowned. “Silver, don’t be rude! Say hello to our new navigator.”

Silver swiveled around on his work stool and snarled a brusque “Hello,” then turned back to sharpening his saw.

“I-is that a hacksaw?” Dipper asked under his breath.

“Silver’s also the ship’s carpenter,” said Cipher, to Dipper’s horror. “If you want my advice, just don’t get yourself injured in the first place.”

“No, be my guest,” said Silver. “Like the cook, it’s been awhile since I’ve had fresh meat.”

The subtle nausea that had been churning in Dipper’s stomach since he’d come aboard suddenly surged, aggravated by the musty air belowdecks, the more forceful pitching of the ship out on the open ocean, and the gruesome images conjured to mind by Silver and his “infirmary.” He slapped a hand over his mouth and dry-retched.

Cipher took a hasty step back and handed him a bucket, plucked from thin air. “Don’t make a mess of my ship,” he said.

Dipper clutched the bucket in front of him, panting heavily, but thankfully, he managed to fight back the urge to vomit, and keep from embarrassing himself. “I think I’m alright now,” he said after a moment. 

“Hold onto that bucket anyway,” said Cipher skeptically. “Yeesh, if I’da known you were the type to get seasick, I woulda towed you along in the dinghy.”

“How would I navigate from the dinghy?” Dipper grumbled.

Cipher laughed in surprise. “That’s why you’re the brains of this operation, kid!” He let the door slam shut on Rose’s kind farewell, and led Dipper back up the corridor, stopping in front of one of the doors on the right. “These will be your quarters. You’re lucky the position of navigator entitles you to your own quarters, or you’d be sleeping down in the hold.”

Dipper cracked the door open and peered inside. The room sat empty, and sparsely furnished, with a simple wardrobe, bed and washbasin. “I didn’t displace anyone, did I?” Dipper asked. It looked like no one had been in here for years, but the last thing he needed now was to be trapped on a ship with a pirate who bore a grudge against him for receiving preferential treatment.

“No, I run the _Sphinx_ with something of a skeleton crew.” Cipher snickered at his own joke. “This room’s been empty for awhile.”

“Well, thank you for the accommodations,” said Dipper, still unsure as to whether he should be angry at Cipher for plotting to abduct him, or grateful to the pirate for saving his life.

Cipher nodded. “You see anything you like when we stop for supplies, I’ll get it for you,” he said. “This room could use some livening up.”

“Oh, no, please, I don’t want to impose at all,” Dipper said. _I don’t want to stay._

Cipher’s hand came down on Dipper’s shoulder and gripped hard. “Kid,” he said, fixing Dipper’s eyes with his own. “You’re part of my crew now. And my crew get what they want.” Dipper nodded wordlessly, unable to look away. It made sense. How well a pirate captain provided for his crew reflected on his abilities as a captain. Thankfully, Cipher’s attention shifted, releasing Dipper from his hypnotic stare. “Come on, one more deck to go.”

They left the room and climbed down through another hatch in the floor, ending up in the cargo hold. It was littered wall to wall with Spanish gold and silver, fine silks and jars of spices from the East Indies, chests of gemstones and lavishly crafted tableware, even antiquities from Egypt and Persia. The whole thing put Dipper in mind of a dragon’s hoard. They called Francis Drake the Queen’s Dragon, but there was no monarch’s hand on Cipher’s chain, which made him a monster of an entirely different caliber.

“You’ll get a share in the spoils when you prove your worth and no sooner,” said Cipher, gold doubloons clanking under his boots as he walked. Dipper thought about trying to refuse the captain’s offer again, and then thought better of it. He had no desire for gold if it was stained with blood, but he would cross that bridge when he came to it. He had yet to prove himself here, as everyone kept reminding him. “With your cut, you could build and equip a whole new observatory, leagues better than the one you had back on Saint Martin,” Cipher said over his shoulder.

Dipper thought about that. He could have a home again after this. He could make real contributions in his field. Perhaps he’d even earn a place in the ranks of the Royal Society. All for the right price. Could he live with the weight of pirate gold in his pocket? Most merchants and politicians did, whether they knew it or not. Dipper ground his teeth, a nervous habit he thought he’d kicked years ago. Turning his mind to the heavens had meant he hadn’t had to consider earthly quandaries such as this very often. But Dipper supposed it hurt no one to consider.

“The ship’s stores are back through there,” Cipher continued, jerking a thumb back over his shoulder to indicate a large pair of wooden doors nearer the bow. Dipper thought he heard a smile in the captain’s voice. “But as I said, they’re empty right now.”

“If only I could eat gold,” Dipper remarked.

“Ha! Emperor Valerian said the same thing, and look what it got him.” Molten gold poured down his throat by the enemies he had plundered, if Dipper recalled his ancient history correctly. “When you get hungry, come down here and Rose will fix you something,” Cipher said as they passed through another set of doors into the galley. There were three long tables with benches spanning the room, all bolted to the floor. In one corner was a small kitchen, equipped with a simple coal-burning oven. The whole room had gathered dust and salt stains, but it looked as though Rose had begun to clean up the kitchen, at least.

They continued through toward the stern, and came next to the magazine, which was packed to the rafters with more barrels of black powder and cannonballs, as well as crates of pistol shot, four open cases of flintlock pistols, two racks of rifles and three more of sabres, as well as an odd assortment of other weapons. “Pick a pistol and a sabre,” said Cipher, gesturing expansively at the racks of weapons.

Dipper had never mastered either weapon. He had often carried a sword at his hip as a precaution against thieves and the like, but it was a scare tactic more than anything. If he had ever had to draw it, he might have been just as likely to injure himself as his assailant. “That might not be such a good idea,” Dipper said, feeling the tips of his ears tinge pink with embarrassment. What was he doing here? He had no business on a pirate ship. The only thing he was going to prove himself was useless, and he would probably get himself killed in the process.

Cipher gave him a long-suffering look. “Kid, I will fight tooth and nail to protect what’s valuable to me, and now that includes you. But unless you want to follow at my heel like a lost puppy wherever I go, you’re going to need to be able to protect yourself. I’ll teach you how to use the weapons, but carrying them ain’t optional.”

“Aye, Captain,” Dipper muttered. Not knowing the first thing about how to choose a suitable weapon, he simply picked the ones that first caught his eye: a pistol with a dark wooden grip, and a sabre with a silver hilt and swirling silver guard. By the time he’d made his selections, Cipher had a scabbard, gun belt, powder flask and leather pouch of shot ready for him.

Dipper had never had to deal with quite so many accessories before, and it took him a few minutes to figure out how to don them all. He kept sneaking glances at Cipher to see how he’d done it, which led Cipher to shrug out of his coat with a smirk, tossing it over his shoulder and turning a slow circle to show off. Ducking his head to tug the last buckle tight across his chest, Dipper rolled his eyes. So it was true what they said: all pirate captains were peacocks at heart.

Cipher snorted. Dipper shot him a suspicious glance. “What’s so funny? I look ridiculous, don’t I?”

“No, no,” Cipher said, swiping a finger under his eye. He looked Dipper up and down slowly. “You look good. I’ll make a pirate of you yet! All you need now is a decent coat.”

Dipper was wearing nothing more than a simple tunic and breeches for his execution. How Cipher had convinced the hangman to let him keep his coat, Dipper had no idea, but he could hazard a range of unpleasant guesses. “I didn’t exactly have time to pack up my wardrobe,” Dipper groused.

“No mind, we’ll pick one up for you in town.”

“This shopping trip is going to burn through all of my coin.”

Cipher laughed. “Who said anything about spending money?”

“Oh.” Right. Pirates.

Cipher laughed again. At least the captain found him amusing. “Come on, one last stop on the grand tour, then we get down to business.” He led the way further back, down a short corridor, and opened the door at the end for Dipper to step through. It was dark and dank inside, so much so that Dipper couldn’t make out the room’s purpose from without. Creeping fingers of dread began to curl around his throat as he reluctantly crossed the threshold. Cipher followed him in, and shut the door behind them. Unlike the other doors on the ship, it closed with a heavy thud. 

For a moment, it was pitch black, and Dipper was aware of nothing more than his own heart stuttering in his ribcage. Then, with a snap of his fingers, Cipher conjured blue flame in his hand, its light dancing around the walls of the small space, and setting his eye aglow like a cat’s in the dark. He was leaning back against the door, casually blocking what Dipper could now see was the only exit. He could also see the chains and shackles hanging from the walls that he couldn’t before.

“This is the brig,” said Cipher, his sharp teeth gleaming as he spoke. “I’ve never used it. I’ll leave you to imagine what I do instead to those who cross me. Smart kid like you, you wouldn’t do anything to find out, would you?”

“I w-wouldn’t dream of it,” Dipper stammered, backing up against the opposite wall. His first instinct was to clutch his bucket defensively between himself and Cipher, which was stupid, considering he now had a sword and pistol. But somehow, he doubted either presented much more of a threat to Cipher than the bucket.

Cipher smiled, a flash in the dark. “Men know no more of dreams than birds do of the ocean’s depths,” he said. Still, he stepped back and opened the door, extinguishing the ethereal blue flames in his fist as light seeped into the room.

Dipper wasted no time getting out of there, and he kept walking until he reached the far end of the corridor, where he had to force himself to stop and wait. He was on a ship, he reminded himself. There was no escape.

Cipher led the way back above deck, acting as though nothing had transpired back there between them. It seemed like days had passed since Dipper had last seen the sky. When he finally climbed back up through the hatch, he gulped down the salt sea air like a man who’d found water in the desert. Cipher looked at him as though he were a particularly pathetic bilge rat. “Don’t tell me you’re claustrophobic, too.”

“I don’t know,” snapped Dipper. “I've had a stressful day.”

Just then, a lean, wiry man came swinging down on a rope from somewhere up in the sails, and Dipper just barely leapt out of his path with a yelp. He was shirtless, and from the back Dipper could see the bones of his spinal column and shoulder blades, completely exposed.

“Hey! Angel!” Cipher yelled, startling the man and causing him to hop to attention. From the front, he looked almost like a normal, living person. “Your feet ain’t supposed to touch the deck until we make port.”

“Aye, Captain, I know,” he said sheepishly. “Just thought I’d drop in to say hello to the new recruit.”

Cipher looked between Angel and Dipper, who was still trembling from the fright he’d just been given on top of everything else. He raised an eyebrow. “I think the kid’s in a mood. You can make a proper introduction later. Has Corwin spied anything of note?” he asked, glancing up in the direction of the crow’s nest.

“Storm clouds on the eastern horizon, but they’re just sitting and brewing out there for now.” Cipher pulled out a spyglass and scanned the horizon as Angel spoke. “A couple of East India Company ships ahead of us, too.”

Cipher collapsed the spyglass and tucked it away again within his coat. “Swap the Black for the Jack. Let ‘em know we’re friendly,” he said, with a distinctly unfriendly smile.

“Aye, Captain.” Angel nodded once to Dipper, then turned and scrambled back up the rigging to the flag pole. Dipper felt vaguely ill again just watching him as he drew down Cipher's Jolly Roger—two golden crossed keys framing that same golden triangle with a single eye that Dipper had seen in several places around the ship—and replaced it with the Union Jack.

Cipher gave a mock salute and grinned. Dipper just felt sicker. “Come with me, kid, I’ve got something that’ll take the edge off.” He led Dipper through a set of doors between the two staircases up to the quarterdeck, and into a room that at first glance much resembled the navigation room. Being directly below the navigation room, it had the same floor plan, with the back wall almost completely composed of windows looking out over the ocean. There was an odd assortment of books, instruments and curios scattered throughout as well, many of them housed in a wall-to-wall bookcase along the starboard wall. In front of the windows sat a large, ornate desk and high-backed chair that might have been fit for a lord, had they not gotten so scratched and scuffed from their tenure at sea. There was a locked chest in one corner, and a king-sized bed up against the opposite wall, its thick black velvet curtains tied back at the posts. These were Cipher’s personal quarters, Dipper realized, as the captain strode over to the desk and started rummaging around in one of the drawers.

Dipper could discern little about the man from the contents of the room. He had no inkling of the significance of most of these objects, if they held significance at all. Cipher simply appeared to be an eccentric collector. _Thief_ , Dipper reminded himself. Cipher had likely stolen most of this stuff, if not all of it. Dipper still wasn’t convinced that Cipher hadn’t stolen this ship.

“Ha!” Cipher exclaimed triumphantly, yanking a bottle of rum and two crystal glasses from the bottom desk drawer. He set the glasses on the desk and poured a generous portion of the golden brown liquid into each. Dipper was parched, and he could use a stiff drink. He moved to accept one of the glasses, but balked when Cipher popped open his powder flask and tipped a sprinkling of gunpowder into each one.

“Why would you do that?” Dipper despaired.

“It’s called a kill-devil. Adds a certain kick.” He offered Dipper one of the glasses. “Like I said, it’ll take the edge off.”

Dipper took a reluctant sip, and coughed violently. “It’s all edge,” he spluttered.

Cipher raised his glass to acknowledge Dipper’s point, and then proceeded to down the contents in a few gulps. “Now,” he said, setting the glass down and leaning over the desk, “to business. Let’s see that journal of yours.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My reference sketches are a little messy. I might re-draw the Cipher "wheel" at some point :)


	4. Blood Moon

Again, Dipper had the strong feeling that showing Bill Cipher the journal was a bad idea. He didn’t know what secrets it contained, but Ford had gone to great lengths to conceal them. The last thing he’d done before he’d left in the night without a word was to slip the journal under Dipper’s pillow with a note: “If I don’t return, this book holds the key. The curse can be broken. They may yet be saved.” Ford had never been one for sailors’ superstitions, and Dipper had never before heard him talk of curses. But he hadn’t been himself for months before he’d left, locking himself in his room most nights with a lantern and a bottle of whiskey. Sometimes Dipper thought he could hear Ford talking to himself though the door. In a way, Dipper and Mabel had lost Ford long before he left. But all that time, he must have been working on the journal. 

Its contents appeared to be purely scientific, full of astronomical charts, maps, naturalist studies of strange sea creatures, the text all written in different codes. It had nothing to do with magic that Dipper could tell. But before he had met Cipher, there had been exactly one image in the journal that he could identify: a map of the Devil’s Triangle. Now there were two more: the constellation on the cover, a twin of which was painted on the ceiling of the _Golden Sphinx’s_ navigation room, and a drawing of an eye inscribed within a triangle just like the one emblazoned on Cipher’s flag. If anyone could help make sense of the journal, it was Cipher. 

Still, he hesitated. “This ain’t a pleasure cruise, kid,” said Cipher. “It’s time for you to start earning your keep.”

Of course it wasn’t. Dipper knew the old sailors’ saying. _Those who would go to sea for pleasure would go to Hell for pastime_. Dipper pulled the journal from his satchel, but kept it close to his chest. “How did you even know I had this?” he asked. “Ford might just as easily have taken it with him when he left.”

“Not where he was going.” Cipher looked irritated that Dipper wasn’t immediately complying with his demand, but he continued, “He needed a backup plan, in case Plan A didn’t pan out as he hoped. You and that journal were it.”

“Were?” The word dropped like a cannonball in a silent room. “Am I too late to help him?” Dipper looked down at the journal in his hands, and he couldn’t keep his voice from trembling when he asked, barely above a whisper, “Was I supposed to figure this out sooner?”  

“I suppose it’s all a matter of perspective,” Cipher sneered. 

“What does that mean?” 

“Are you gonna cooperate, or am I going to have to _make_ you more cooperative?”

Dipper took a startled step back. “What?”  

Cipher rounded the desk, his steps slow and deliberate, like a panther stalking its prey. “It’ll be a shame. I’d much prefer to keep your mind sharp. But if you make the easy option difficult, I’ll start considering my other options.” Dipper took another step back, and heard the lock on the cabin’s door click shut behind him. 

“W-well, you’re not exactly inspiring trust here,” Dipper squeaked. He even sounded like prey. This was not good. 

Cipher barked a harsh laugh. “You can’t trust me.”

“Because you’re a pirate,” Dipper muttered.

“Because I am something _much worse_ ,” Cipher hissed, and for the barest moment, his eye seemed to flash the same blue color as the flames that licked his fingertips. Dipper actually whimpered. It felt like his knees were about to give out, but he couldn’t move to steady himself. He had never been more scared in his life, and he had stood in the eye of the hurricane that had torn apart his parents’ ship, and watched as it ravaged the town all around him. At least hurricanes were a force of nature. Nothing on this ship was natural. 

Dipper’s hand flew to the hilt of his sword. Cipher tracked the movement with a disinterested look. “I’ll tell you what you _can_ trust,” he said. “First, that I want to find what your great uncle was searching for as much as he did. Second, that it will be much easier for me to do so with your willing assistance. And third, that I _can_ find it without you if I have to, and you’ll never make it off this ship if you decide to go back on our deal. Have I made myself clear?”

Dipper nodded wordlessly, his hand falling limply to his side. If he fought this, this _thing_ , he would lose. Of that he was certain. 

“Good,” said Cipher. He even smiled in a mockery of friendship. “Now, neither of us is inclined to give up something for nothing. That’s a trait I respect. And it’s the reason we made a deal. We agreed on an exchange of information—quid pro quo. I’ve answered enough questions for now. It’s your turn to put out.” 

Crude phrasing aside, Cipher was right. They had a fair deal. Cipher could easily take the journal from him by force, and hurt him until he got whatever he needed out of Dipper. It wouldn’t take much. But instead, he’d done Dipper the courtesy of threatening him first. It was something, at least. And it just might be the foundation of an insane partnership. Dipper turned the journal around in his hands to show Cipher the cover. “Do you know these stars?”

Cipher cocked his head, examining. Then genuine, delighted laughter began to bubble up from him, bright and unbridled. It took him a moment to recompose himself enough to say, “Oh, my poor stargazer, you’ve been searching the wrong sky.”

“You mean this is a constellation in the Southern Hemisphere? Because I have detailed star charts of both—“

“Not the Southern Hemisphere.” 

“Then what on earth do you mean?” 

“Not on earth.” Cipher grinned. “Remember, there are nine seas, not seven. Two of them just happen to be...more difficult to get to.”

“And these...unearthly seas,” Dipper began skeptically, “you mean to say that different stars shine over them?”

“Exactly.”

Dipper started grinding his teeth again. “You are very much straining my credulity.”

“What did I tell you?” Cipher closed the distance between them in a few deliberate steps, and reached out as if to tuck a lock of hair behind Dipper’s ear. “Open mind.” The second his fingertips brushed Dipper’s temple, Dipper’s vision blurred and darkened. It felt as though the whole earth flipped upside-down, and then he saw light, so bright it leeched out almost all of the color from the scene in front of him. 

A vast sea stretched out before him, endless, and perfectly still. Not even a breeze stirred the water’s surface. The sky above was a bright blank slate, turning the sea a lifeless grey with its pale light. He heard Cipher’s voice in his mind: _“The Stygian Sea, otherwise known as the Undersea, or the Sea of the Dead. Only at the time of certain rare celestial alignments can the stars be seen here, making it almost impossible to navigate. And it’s as much of a pain to get there as it is to get back. We’d have to sail to the ends of the earth—literally.”_

Dipper’s vision blurred again, and darkness returned. _“Luckily, that’s not where your stars are.”_ When another vision presented itself, the darkness lingered. A churning, inky black sea stretched out in all directions beneath a black velvet sky encrusted with diamond stars. Dipper had never seen so many stars. _“The Somnian Sea, otherwise known as the Sea of Dreams. The sea all men sail each night alone.”_ Cipher sounded almost wistful as he spoke. _“This is where we find your stars, suspended over a sea veiled in perpetual night, and inhabited by dreams and nightmares.”_ Sure enough, amidst the thousands of points of brilliant light, Dipper could pick out the constellation he’d searched for for so long, etched above him in the dark. It felt almost close enough to reach out and touch. He was so close. Then the vision began to fade once more, but before it dissipated entirely, Dipper caught a glimpse of something large, dark and serpentine moving beneath the waves. 

The darkness retreated gradually, as though Dipper had stared too long into the sun. He swayed on his feet as the cabin came back into focus, but Cipher caught him before he fell. “Too much?” asked Cipher, leading Dipper back to the desk and dropping him unceremoniously into the chair. 

Dipper crossed his arms atop the desk, buried his head in them and groaned. It was too much. It was all too much. The visions had been beautiful and terrifying. _Rather like the captain himself_ , Dipper’s brain supplied, unhelpfully. He wanted to bang his head against the desk. This was no time to develop some kind of strange fixation with the man—no, the _thing_ —that was keeping him captive. 

“Hey, hey, that desk is sixteenth century! I gave you a bucket!”

“‘M not nauseous,” Dipper mumbled into his arms. “Jus’ dizzy. M’ head’s still spinning.”

Cipher muttered something about him having a delicate constitution, but he sounded distracted. Dipper looked up to see him flipping through the journal. Dipper scrabbled around on the desk, but clearly Cipher must have slipped it from his grasp without Dipper noticing. Probably while he’d been filling Dipper’s head with visions of impossible places. 

“Hey, give that back!” Dipper stood up too quickly, felt the ship sway one way while his plane of vision seemed to tilt in the other, and sat back down, hard.

“If you kiss a thief, count your teeth.” Cipher chuckled. “You can’t even read this, can you?”

“Can you?” Dipper asked, half barbed retort, half desperate hope. 

“What, just ‘cause my name is Cipher, you think I know every secret code under the sun?” Dipper was about to retract the question when Cipher said, “Because you’d be right.”

“Really?” Dipper asked, trying and failing not to sound overeager. “You can decode that?”

“Of course I can,” said Cipher, as though it were a matter of personal pride. “But the trick with a cipher is, it requires a key to make sense of. Given enough time, I could crack the codes myself without the keys, but if you can guess what the keys are, it’ll be a lot less of a hassle. So I’ll need to pick your brain for words and phrases your great uncle might have chosen to use.”

“Please tell me you’re not using that expression literally,” said Dipper. 

“Well I guess not, if you’re going to be so sensitive about it.”

“I don’t like having company in my own head. I think that’s perfectly normal.”

Cipher had stopped listening to him again. “This first page is written in a simple Zodiac alphabet.” He dropped the open journal onto the desk and flipped it around to face Dipper. “The symbols of the zodiac stand in for letters. Usually, the same letters: the Sun for A, Jupiter for B, Saturn for C, and so on.” 

 

Dipper smacked his forehead. “I thought it was documenting their relative positions over time, but it didn’t make any sense.” 

“As a code, it’s child’s play,” said Cipher, coming around to stand beside Dipper. He snatched up an ostrich feather quill from his desk and dipped it in the inkwell, then began to scribble letters beneath the astrological symbols. It took him less than a minute to finish. The message read: 

 _When the lesser light bleeds,_  
_So must the pine give its sap_  
_To anoint the stone._  
_When red eye looks through red eye,  
_ _The light reveals the way._

“It’s almost as cryptic as it was before,” Dipper sighed. “I think ‘when the lesser light bleeds’ refers to a Blood Moon…”

“No better time for blood magic,” Cipher mused. ”When’s the next Blood Moon?”

“That’s the thing, it’s too convenient. The Blood Moon is tonight.”

Cipher rested a hand on the back of the chair and gazed down at Dipper. “I take it you don’t believe in providence.” 

“The mechanics of the heavens are predictable,” said Dipper. “But divine providence? No, I see no reason to think there is such a thing.”  

“Well, then you might think of it this way: It was the solar eclipse that got you into all this trouble in the first place. Your trial took, what, a week? And your execution was scheduled for the week after? The Blood Moon just happens to be two weeks after the solar eclipse this year at this place and time. You said it yourself: The mechanics of the heavens are predictable.” 

“I suppose…” Still, it was an unnerving coincidence. “Do you have any idea what the rest of it means?”

“I do,” said Cipher, but he didn’t elaborate. Instead, he shut the journal, leaving it on the desk as he walked away toward the door. It unlocked itself at his approach. “Bring the journal with you when we make port. In the meantime, come up with a list of keys we can try. Words and short phrases he might have expected you and no one else would guess.” With that, he left Dipper alone in his cabin, and thankfully, he didn’t lock the door again behind him. As long as Dipper was on the ship, it seemed Cipher wasn’t concerned about letting him have the run of it. That fact wasn’t as reassuring as it ought to have been. It meant that Cipher alone held the answers Dipper needed, that nothing else on board could help him.

He was left wondering if he would have been better off devoting his studies to cryptography rather than astronomy, despite how he’d gradually fallen in love with the stars. It seemed as though it would take both his and Cipher’s talents to crack the journal. Perhaps if Dipper had had another five years to study codes and ciphers, he could have done it alone, but Cipher made it sound as though it was already too late for him to use anything he might learn from the journal to help Ford. Had Ford really expected him to have figured everything out years ago? Had he let his great uncle down? ...Or was he missing something?

Surely Ford hadn’t indented for him to enlist Cipher’s help. Cipher seemed the perfect ally—too perfect, another coincidence with an air of providence. Dipper was waiting for the catch. Well, other than the fact that he was apparently some sort of homicidal nightmare demon. On second thought, that was a pretty big catch. 

Dipper’s jaw was beginning to ache with how much he’d been clenching it. He sighed, dropping his chin into his hands and massaging the hinges of his jaw for a minute. If he’d missed an opportunity or a clue somewhere along the way, there was nothing he could do about it now. He couldn’t rewrite history. And there wasn’t much he could do about his predicament now, either, so getting worked up about it wouldn’t do him any good. He took a deep breath, and refocused his attention on the task at hand. He needed to come up with a list of keys. The most logical short-term objective for him now was to keep Cipher happy, and disinclined to write him off as more trouble than he was worth. When they made landfall in St. Kitts, Dipper would reconsider his options. 

He picked up Cipher’s quill and opened one of the ledger books on his desk to a blank page. 

~ X ~

Dipper heard the cry of land about about two hours after Cipher had left him, by his estimate. He had filled a page front and back with keys he thought Ford might have used, from the names of his favorite authors and the towns and cities he’d lived in, to his favorite breakfast food and whiskey label. Dipper wasn’t confident in any of them. This ordeal had made him question a great many things, but there was one question that kept resurfacing in his mind no matter how often he shoved it down: _How well had he really known Ford?_

Cipher returned not long after that, although he seemed surprised to find Dipper there. “Still here, Pine Tree?” He crossed the room to rummage through his dresser. “Y’know, if you spend too much time in my cabin, the crew are going to talk.” 

Dipper blushed. “I– I thought you meant for me to work in here.”  

Cipher chuckled. “What’d I say? Sensitive.” He fished a dagger out of one of the drawers and slid it into his boot. Then he pulled out a black kerchief and tied it around his neck. “You ready to go ashore?”

Dipper tore the page of keys from the book and tucked it inside the cover of Ford’s journal. “I am. Just...out of curiosity, what’s to stop me from bolting as soon as we make port, and bartering passage on another ship?”

Cipher looked at him blankly. “Aside from me?”

“Oh.” Dipper averted his gaze. So he really was a captive. 

“You’re not going to run,” Cipher said.

“You sound more sure of that than I am.”

“I’ve seen that look in your eyes before. All pirates share it. You desire something more than you care about your own wellbeing. So even if you see me as a threat, you’ll stick with me as long as it gets you closer to your goal. In that way, you’re no different from the rest of the crew. _They_ simply don’t have the option of deserting.” 

“You mean you’d kill them if they tried?”

Cipher laughed. “I wouldn’t have to—it’d be suicide! Who do you think is holding those sorry scrap piles together?”

“You— You’re keeping them alive?” 

“In a way. The annoying part is, land is for the living. And while they ain’t dead, they ain’t exactly alive, either.”

“So they can’t go ashore,” Dipper finished. “That’s why you came to get me alone.”

“I gotta do all my own errands around here,” Cipher sighed. “It’s unbefitting of a man of my station. But now I have you! So it’ll be just you and me on this little excursion. Plenty of time for us to work out our differences.”

“By that do you mean _‘Get over your compunctions, Dipper, or else’_?”

Cipher grinned. “See? We understand each other better already.” 

~ X ~ 

Dipper’s first impression of St. Kitts was that it was less colorful than Saint Martin. The light was dying, but even so, he could tell that it lacked the riotous vibrancy of its French-Dutch neighbor. It was an older colony, and many of the buildings were stone rather than painted wood, the streets of the port town they’d arrived in laid out on a grid. When they disembarked, the port master was waiting for them on the dock. 

“Papers, please,” the man said to Cipher. Dipper had a brief moment to panic before Cipher produced a leather document folder from the inside pocket of his coat and flipped it open for the port master to see. The port master adjusted his spectacles. “A letter of marque from Her Majesty the Queen, for Captain William Perich of the _Silver Stag_. Very good. Welcome to St. Kitts, Captain Perich. I hope you’ve had good hunting.” Cipher tipped his hat, and as the port master opened his book to make a record of their visit, Cipher dropped a gold doubloon into it. The port master snapped the book shut on the coin immediately. “Thank ye kindly, sir,” he said with a nod.  

“Thank the Spanish,” Cipher chuckled as he walked away down the dock. Dipper hurried to follow.  

“Perich? Really?” Dipper hissed under his breath. “That’s obviously an anagram of Cipher.” 

Cipher seemed oddly pleased that he’d figured out the little puzzle. “It wasn’t so obvious to our friend the port master.” 

“How did you even come by a letter of marque? You’re not a privateer.”

“A privateer is just a pirate with a license,” said Cipher. “But you’re right—I’m no privateer.” 

He handed Dipper the letter, and Dipper unfolded it—only to realize that it was blank. “More of your mind tricks? Is that also why no one seems to recognize your ship?”  

Cipher plucked the blank document back from Dipper’s hands. “You do catch on quick. The market’s all packed up for the night,” he said, gesturing expansively at the wide and empty main street they were walking through, “so we’ll get a room at one of the inns with a lovely view of the moon, and pick up our supplies in the morning.”

Dipper could have been formulating his own plans of escape in the meantime. St. Kittts was under British control; it would be safe for him to make his way wherever he wanted to go from here, if he could slip away from Cipher’s watchful eye. That was a big ‘if’. And he was making no such plans. It was as Cipher had said: he wanted too badly to know what Cipher knew, to understand why Ford and then Stan had left him and Mabel to fend for themselves when they had promised to look after them. He needed to know what was more important than that promise. Even if the knowledge, or the means of obtaining it, were dangerous. And he was under no delusions about just how dangerous Cipher was. He had been accommodating enough thus far, but Dipper knew it would be a very different story should he fail to fulfill his end of their bargain. Still, he’d started something that he had to see through. Mabel had always said he was too stubborn for his own good. 

They found a less-than-reputable-looking ‘inn’ on the outskirts of town that Dipper was mortified to discover doubled as a brothel. The outside had been painted a bright green years ago that had since peeled and greyed. Heavy curtains were drawn across most of the windows, but rousing music from a four-piece band tumbled out of the open doors into the night. 

“This place oughta do,” said Cipher, and strode inside before Dipper could argue, leaving Dipper with no choice but to follow. In an old armchair in the parlor lounged a woman of middling age who must have been a great beauty once. On the wall above her, a painted sign proclaimed the establishment to house “Exotic Ladies from the Four Corners of the Empire.” Through the doorway, the place opened up to an indoor courtyard with a small bandstand surrounded by scattered tables, and rooms ringing each floor above, which scantily clad women and drunken men occasionally wandered in and out of, some ending up draped over the bannister, listening to the music in the courtyard below. 

“Evening, gentlemen,” the madam said, rising from her chair. “What can we do for you on this fine night?”

“Evening, madam.” Cipher tipped his hat, all perfect charm. Dipper pitied the woman—and anyone else—who succumbed to that particular illusion of his. “We’d like a room for the night.”

Dipper nudged Cipher in the side and murmured, “The moon rises in the south tonight.”

“You got one with a south-facing window?” Cipher continued without missing a beat. “The kid likes the moonlight.” 

Cipher’s roguish grin and the habits of the madam’s profession kept her from inquiring further into the matter. “That can be arranged,” she said. “Our rooms only have one bed each, however. Gentlemen of fortune such as yourselves could surely afford two...?”

“One bed’s fine,” said Cipher dismissively. “We won’t be doing much sleeping, anyway.”

The madam’s eyebrows rose a fraction, and she began to appraise them in a different fashion, no longer simply sizing up how much coin they carried in their purses, but probing for details altogether more personal. “Will the room be all? Or shall I send a couple of my lovely ladies up with you?”

“Just the room,” said Cipher. “Oh, and a hot meal. That way you can’t say I didn’t buy you dinner first.” He winked at Dipper, who blushed furiously and wished that they’d just gone ahead and hunghim that morning.  

The madam cleared her throat and straightened her sleeves. “That’ll be a shilling and tuppence.”

Cipher dropped two shillings into her hand. “The rest is for your discretion.”  

“Of course.” She stowed the coins safely away in her purse and pulled a ring of keys from the folds of her dress, flipping through until she found the one she was looking for. She handed it to Cipher. “Your room’s on the second floor, southeast corner. Have a seat in the courtyard and someone’ll bring out your supper.” 

They found a rickety table and set of chairs in the far corner, away from the band, and a woman dressed in little more than a shift and corset sauntered over with two pints of frothy ale. She set them on the table and gave him and Cipher a cursory once over. “Madam says I oughtn’t waste my charms on you gents—“ her voice dipped into a lower register and she batted her eyelashes as she said “—but if you’d like me to turn ‘em on, just let me know.” 

When she was gone, Dipper dropped his head into his hands and groaned. “Why are we here, of all places?”

“Now, now,” said Cipher, sipping contentedly at his ale, “we don’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to ourselves.”

“I’d say we’ve already done that,” Dipper said, with a glance in the madam’s direction. 

“I guarantee you she’s seen stranger things,” said Cipher. “Besides, would you rather she get curious as to what we’re really getting up to tonight?”

“No, I suppose not,” Dipper conceded reluctantly. “But what exactly is it that we’re going to do? You weren’t serious about blood magic, surely?”

“It’ll just take a _little_ blood magic. Don’t worry about it.”

Dipper wasn’t seriously worried about it before, but he was now. But before he could voice his concerns, the woman returned with a steaming plate of pork wrapped in banana leaves over a bed of cornmeal, and set it in front of him. The delicious scent hit him as hard as the realization that he hadn’t eaten all day,  and it had been a _very_ taxing day. His stomach growled in agreement. 

The woman chuckled. “Tuck in, tiger.” 

Dipper blushed, and fumbled to tip her for her trouble. She tucked the coins securely into her bodice and leaned down to give him a kiss on the cheek before walking away to another table. Blushing even harder, Dipper ducked his head and started shoveling food into his mouth. Cipher lounged back in his chair and laughed. 

~ X ~ 

It was a quarter to eleven when they went up to their room. “If I’m right, the eclipse will begin a few minutes past the hour,” said Dipper as Cipher locked the door behind them. 

“That gives us plenty of time. The magic’s simple enough, even you couldn’t mess it up.” Cipher threw open the curtains to let in the moonlight, and set a tin tankard he’d stolen from downstairs on the table in front of the window. 

“I thought you didn’t do this sort of ritual magic,” Dipper said nervously as he watched Cipher pull the dagger from his boot and set it beside the empty tankard. 

“I said ‘didn’t’, not ‘couldn’t’. Normally, this sort of thing is beneath me.” He held out his hand. “The journal, if you please.”  

Dipper hesitated only for a moment this time before handing the journal over to Cipher. They were so close now to unlocking its secrets, and there was no time to waste. But Dipper regretted being so hasty when Cipher took the dagger to the ruby embedded in the cover and began to pry it out. “What are you doing?” Dipper asked in horror.

“This is the stone we need to anoint.” The ruby popped out into Cipher’s hand, and he dropped it into the tankard. Then he offered Dipper the knife. “Hold your hand over the cup, slice open your palm, and spill your blood over the ruby.”

Dipper reflexively clenched his fists. “W-why does it have to be me?”

“My blood isn’t red. Besides, the instructions specifically refer to sap from a pine. That means it’s gotta be the blood of someone in your family. Now, either you spill your blood—” Cipher flipped the dagger in his hand so it was the blade rather than the hilt that faced Dipper “—or I’ll do it for you.”

Dipper took a shuddering breath. “Okay. Give me the knife.” Cipher did so. Dipper lifted his left hand over the tankard and willed it not to shake. He uncurled his fingers slowly and pressed the sharp blade to his palm. “This is insane,” he uttered under his breath. He couldn’t watch as he slid the blade across his skin, so he looked up at the moon. An ashen red shadow was beginning to creep across its face. He drew the knife down in one swift motion, and hissed in pain a moment later when the sensation registered. Blood dripped from the deep gash into the cup like water from a rusted spigot. 

When the ruby was submerged in blood, Cipher brushed Dipper’s hand away. “That’s enough.” He pulled the black kerchief from around his neck and set it down on the table in front of Dipper along with his hip flask. “Fix yourself up.”

Gritting his teeth, Dipper poured a little of the whiskey over his wound. It stung almost as much as the slice of the blade. Quickly, he wrapped the kerchief around his hand as tightly as he could bear, and tied it off with his uninjured hand and his teeth. “Thanks,” he muttered.  

“ _Verum omnia simul astra_ ,” said Cipher, raising the cup toward the darkening moon. A sick, red light pulsed within the cup, then faded.

“It was an _incantation_?” 

“Cryptic Latin phrases? Magic incantations nine times outa ten.” Cipher brought the cup back down and peered inside, then grinned broadly. He plucked out the ruby, which had grown larger and darker, as though the blood had congealed and crystalized around it. He held the stone up to the window as the eclipse finally reached totality, and the moon turned to blood. “When red eye looks through red eye,” he recited, and a beam of faint red moonlight refracted by the ruby fell upon the cover of the journal, “the light reveals the way.”

As if laid in perfectly clear crystal that only reflected and revealed itself under just the right light, shining markings began to appear on the cover, resolving themselves into a simple sketch. Directly beneath the constellation was... “An island!” 

Cipher’s eye reflected the hellish red light as he gazed down at the image. “That’s where we’ll find it.” 

~ X ~ 

Somewhere out at sea, not so very far away, a ship with black sails drifted quietly through the night. In the captain’s quarters of that ship, the light of the Blood Moon filtered in through the windows, bathing the whole room bloodred and casting bruised shadows in every corner. On the desk in front of the windows, the light fell upon the cover of a battered, leather-bound journal, and illuminated a fraction of its secrets. The captain, little more than a silhouette in the strange light, straightened in his chair and took note. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a little gem I found in The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: “Pirates typically attack at dawn, when they are most sober.”


End file.
